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They may be called the Palace Guard, the City Guard, or the Patrol. Whatever the name, their purpose in any work of heroic fantasy is identical: it is, round about Chapter Three (or ten minutes into the film) to rush into the room, attack the hero one at a time, and be slaughtered. No-one ever asks them if they wanted to.

This book is dedicated to those fine men.

The eighth Discworld book and the first to feature the City Watch, one of the most popular of the major character groups/themes in Pratchett's creation, plus the first appearance of C.M.O.T. Dibbler, though as a one-note gag character. It is also notable in that it is the first of the Discworld books in which Patrician Vetinari is the MagnificentBastard we all know and love. Up until this point Pterry was still working out the character, and aspects of the final product appeared in other books, but Guards! Guards! is the first book in which the character is recognisable as he exists now.

Once upon a time, the Ankh-Morpork City Watch was a proud lawkeeping organisation, but nowadays the Machiavellian Patrician, Lord Vetinari, keeps the peace by the simpler notion of instituting the Guild of Thieves and asking them to police crime themselves. The Night Watch has dwindled away, and now there are only three watchmen left - Captain Sam Vimes, Sergeant Fred Colon and Corporal "Nobby" Nobbs. The fourth, Herbert Gaskin, died a week before the book takes place when, while routinely half-heartedly chasing some crook, he accidentally got ahead of the group and killed by the crook's buddies hiding behind a corner.

They are joined by the newest recruit, Lance-Constable Carrot Ironfoundersson, who was raised by dwarfs in the mountains. A huge, powerful and highly moral and innocent young man, he immediately tries to arrest the head of the Thieves' Guild and clean up the Mended Drum pub - and succeeds. Not only is he tough, he also has a strange... charisma.

At the same time, The Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night is planning to summon a noble dragon using a book stolen from Unseen University's Library and use it in a ploy to place a puppet ruler on the throne as king. Almost unwittingly, Vimes and his crew are on the case, with the help of upper-class swamp dragon breeder Sybil Ramkin. But can these unlikely heroes save the city when the dragon decides to take the throne for itself?

Guards! Guards! has been adapted into a play and a graphic novel, and is often cited as the best Discworld novel for new readers to start the series. Notably, Pratchett said that Carrot was originally going to be the viewpoint character, but the structure of the book didn't allow it so he made up Vimes - who is now one of the most popular and complex characters in the whole of Discworld.

Contains examples of:

Sybil: Do you realise we're very probably seeing something no-one has seen for centuries? Vimes: Yes, it's a bloody flying alligator setting fire to my city!

They have a similar exchange near the end about stopping the mob from killing the dragon. This time Vimes decides that since Sybil was about to be eaten and still doesn't hate it, she may be better entitled to her opinion than he is to his.

Adventurer Archaeologist: Mentioned, in the form of "smart bastards whose idea of a day's work was prising the Ruby Eye of the Earwig King out of its socket."

It's mentioned that Unseen University Library "would make even M. C. Escher take a good lie down, or possibly sideways".

There's a very good argument made that because "books = knowledge and knowledge = power"note = energy = matter = mass, then any decent-sized library or bookstore has power on the scale of a small black hole, turning libraries into reality-warped redoubts.

Animal Espionage: When imprisoned, Vetinari somehow manages to make an arrangement with the rats after being imprisoned. In return for him helping them, they will bring him news as to what is happening, both in terms of papers and gossip. It's implied that they were a result of the Unseen University's experiments, which is how they are so useful.

The oath of loyalty sworn by the Brethren, especially the bit about what will happen to them if they break faith, is full of obscure and antiquated words; it's a running joke that they're all in mortal fear of having their figgin taken out and toasted on a spike, without any of them being entirely sure what a figgin is. (A footnote tells us it's a pastry filled with raisins, and the guards enjoy some later on.)

Other words in the oath include welchet ("a type of waistcoat worn by certain clock-makers"), gaskin ("a shy, grey-brown bird of the coot family") and moules ("a game of skill and dexterity, involving tortoises"). The oath, when one doesn't know the meaning of the words in it, sounds much more menacing than it actually is. The Supreme Grand Master notes the fact that none of them have asked what any of the words mean as a sign of their stupidity.

Vimes also writes like this, despite speaking modern English

"Itym: From whence it cometh, none knowe, nor wither it goeth, nor where it bideth betweentimes;"

Artistic License – Biology: The swamp dragons are realistic dragons (with the inconsistencies explained by magic), with a lot of effort spent on what would actually be required to create a creature that had anything in common with mythological dragons. They can fly, but only because they're about the size of a dog, they breathe fire because most of their body and brain is dedicated to a digestive system that looks more like a chemical processing plant, and they spend nearly all of their time sick and about to explode because of those same chemicals being constantly unbalanced. Duels over territory generally involve two dragons circling each other and breathing fire until one explodes, at which point the winner generally explodes out of excitement anyway. The only reason they've managed to survive is because some nobles enjoy breeding them, and they're still nearly extinct.

Attack Its Weak Point: Colon attempts to hit the dragon in it with an arrow. He has no idea what its Weak Point actually is, but you'd know it if you saw it, right?

The first book where saying monkeynote ohshit in front of the Librarian is potentially lethal.

Also, Vimes is shown as loving Ankh Morpork and hating kings so much that when a dragon is destroying his city and being revered as a king, that he picks up the Librarian by the chest fur and shakes him in a rage. The Librarian decides not to make an issue of it, since a man who can pick up a three hundred pound orangutan without noticing clearly has more important things on his mind.

Big Bad: The Dragon goes from enigmatic plot device to this when it declares itself king of Ankh-Morpork.

The Big Guy: Carrot, who not only manages to take out the entire clientele of the Mended Drum at once, but beats Detritus at the same time. For those who don't know, Detritus is a troll, and therefore made of solid rock.

"I believe you find life such a problem because you think there are the good people and the bad people. You're wrong, of course. There are, always and only, the bad people - but some of them are on opposite sides."

Bookends: When we're first introduced to Vimes, he's drunkenly comparing the city to a woman. At the end of the book as his romance with Lady Sybil blossoms, he compares the woman to a city.

When the heroes refuse to slay the dragon because Vetinari doesn't have a daughter to give her hand in marriage, Vimes mention he does have an aunt. This was never referred to again until Night Watch, years later and mostly set before this book, when Vetinari's aunt Lady Roberta Meserole is a significant character.

Also, his little dog, which shows up in The Truth as a major character and gets another mention in Going Postal.

The "eye-watering words" mentioned at the start keep popping up. For instance, after going out to get some food, Nobby innocently asks the captured Brother Fingers if he wants his figgin toasted, with predictable results.

Among the things C.M.O.T. Dibbler sells are mystic products "made from over fifty different rare spices and herbs to a recipe known only to a bunch of ancient monks what live on some mountain somewhere". Vimes (and the reader) dismisses this as his usual sales talk given the quality of the rest of his goods, but at the very end of the book, as we pan across the Discworld, there's a brief moment where two monks on a mountain at the Hub of the world prepare to send their latest shipment to Dibbler.

Brother Dunnikin's contribution to the first set of magical items for dragon-summoning is an amulet that supposedly protects him from crocodile bites. The Supreme Grand Master sneers at buying such a thing in a temperate city. Later he misses a meeting of the Brethren because...he's been bitten by a crocodile. The Supreme Grand Master insists this is just a coincidence.

By-the-Book Cop: Carrot. "The Book" in this case being The Laws and Ordinances of The Cities of Ankh and Morpork, published some six generations previously. Carrot isn't just the only copper who follows the book, he's probably the only one who's read it.

Call Back: As it opens, the book describes the state of the dragons, concluding, "Possibly the word we're looking for here is...dormant." Much later, the passage is repeated again, concluding, "Possibly the word we're looking for here is...angry."

"FABRICATI DIEM, PVNC" the modern-day motto of the Night Watch. note It's actually gibberish, but Fred Colon thinks it means "To protect and Serve" and Vimes thinks it means "Make My Day, Punk". The old motto was Fabricati Diem, Pvncti Agvnt Celeriter, which means "Make the day, the minutes pass by quickly", but most of the mural wore away. Another possible reading (from a reader's point of view, though not explicitly given in the book) is "Built in the year dot", appropriate to the Watch House's extreme age and dilapidation.

Catch Phrase: This is the first of the Watch books where Vetinari says "Don't let me detain you," which he's later known for saying.

Chalk Outline: Vimes traces the big dragon's outline at the spot in the Plaza of Broken Moons where the patsy-king "slew" it, presumably with a very large piece of chalk.

Chandelier Swing: A Discussed Trope; the tales the Mr. Varneshi tells young Carrot about his ancestor's Watch career involve a lot of chandelier swinging, and later a group of guards ordered to arrest Sam Vimes worry that he'll turn out to be a swashbuckling hero and fight them all off while shouting "Ha!" and swinging from the chandelier.

Characterisation Marches On: Actually pretty understated compared to other first-in-the-sub-arc Discworld books. In fact some characters who had been introduced in earlier books (such as the Patrician, and maybe even the city of Ankh-Morpork itself) emerged from Early Installment Weirdness into their recognisable selves. Vimes, however, is markedly different in this first appearance from his later self. Some of it is of course simply Character Development, but it's pretty startling to revisit a Vimes who has no strong opinions on the monarchy (rather it's Colon who rails against it), and leaves a fellow officer to fend for himself in a bar brawl.

Considering Lady Sybil's subsequent campaign to bar Vimes from his beloved bacon sandwiches, it's a bit jarring for her to serve him an artery-clogging breakfast fry-up after the attack on the Watch House.

To be fair, that's Character Development and understandable. When you're just meeting someone and trying to be friends, you don't start off by imposing a dietary regime on him. A wife/mother trying to ensure her husband eats healthy so he'll live a long time is another matter; the "no burnt crunchy bits" thing doesn't start until after Fifth Elephant, when Sybil becomes pregnant.

Vetinari is unusually petulant and emotive, although it's probably just a matter of Character Development:

Five minutes later the Patrician was striding the length of the Oblong Office, fuming. "They were laughing at me," said the Patrician. "I could tell!"

Chekhov's Gun: The footnote about the nature of libraries initially seems like a one-off gag, but the Librarian later quotes the equation to himself and uses it to travel back through time to learn who stole his book.

Combat Pragmatist: Vimes, who is here presented as preferring a cleaver to a sword as a weapon.

Comically Small Demand: After the Night Watch is honored for saving the day, the Patrician asks them to name their reward. The guardsmen put their heads together and request a five-dollar pay raise, a replacement tea kettle, and perhaps a dart board.

Summoning dragons into Disc reality previously appeared in The Colour of Magic. The passage from de Malachite's book which appears at the end mentions that someone "Pure in Harte" could possibly call up a good dragon; Twoflower evidently did so when he summoned Ninereeds, as that dragon was obedient and protective of its summoner.

Carrot's sword. It hasn't got a name, it has no jewels on it; it's just a long piece of metal with very sharp edges. But in a magical land like Discworld, Carrot's sword is unique for not being magical at all. It is so non-magical it's realer than most of the Discworld. It's one of those things, like Death, where it simply is. Since most of Discworld is magical, and the sword is not, it's a hot knife through butter.

Invoked with the "royal sword" that the Supreme Grand Master had made for the king-to-be, but subverted in that it's crafted to only look cool, but is completely worthless as a weapon.

Covers Always Lie: One American paperback edition features passable depictions of Vimes, Carrot, Lady Sybil, the dragon.. and very prominently, a wizard. The only wizard who gets a speaking part in the novel is the unnamed Archchancellor of Unseen University, and he appears in exactly one scene.

Critical Staffing Shortage: The night watch, made virtually redundant by the legalizing of crime, is reduced to four men (Two incompetents and an idealist, commanded by an alcoholic) to police a city of a million by the time this book is set.

Cry Laughing/Laugh Themselves Sick: When Colon timidly asks if the Watch can get a small raise, a kettle, and a dartboard as their reward for saving the city, Vimes laughs until he cries. It's not just the pathetic request, it's everyone's reactions, and the general absurdity of the whole world...

Curse Cut Short: All over the place. Special mention goes to Nobby's description of Colon's fall through a privy roof.

Decoy Protagonist: Carrot. Actually an unintentional example: Pratchett intended to make him the protagonist, but needed a voice in the city before Carrot arrived, threw the character of Vimes together out of clichés as a stop-gap, and he ended up taking on a life of his own.

Deadpan Snarker: Death, as usual, puts the "dead" in it. Upon being informed that the Elucidated Brethren just wanted what was coming to them:

Death:Congratulations.

Desperate Object Catch: At Lady Sybil's urging, Vimes dives to catch Errol the swamp dragon after the great dragon swats him out of the sky. She only explains that Errol could have exploded if he'd crashed after Vimes has the volatile creature in his arms.

The description of Where the Dragons Went includes "It would put you in mind of a can of sardines, if you thought sardines were huge and scaly and proud and arrogant."

The dragon's eye was the size of an enormous eye...

Don't Tell Mama: One of the first things Carrot does on his first night on patrol is shame a bunch of bar-brawling dwarfs into behaving themselves by asking what their mothers would say if they found out.

Dragon Hoard: The dragon that takes over the palace of Ankh-Morpork demands all the gold for its hoard. Since Ankh-Morpork is a Vestigial Empire of gilded treasures and heavily diluted coinage, there's a lot of ugliness before the dragon is satisfied.

Drowning My Sorrows: Vimes, constantly. Colon explains that most men's bodies produce a bit of alcohol naturally, but Vimes was born "two drinks low," so when he's sober, he's really sober. The resulting clarity of thought makes him cynical and depressed, so he self-medicates, but as Colon says, he usually gets the dosage wrong.

All (Morporkian) writing is in Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe, and years are numbered rather than given animal names as in later books. Still, later books have gone back to the numbers; the Century of the Fruitbat is the 20th Century.

Dwarf genders. While this book is the first one to set up the idea (in a footnote), that gender is "more or less optional" among dwarves, it's treatment is nonetheless different than in later books, with Carrot using female pronouns for both Minty, his mother, and mums in general. However, later books make it very clear that, in Dwarven society, male is the default gender, and anyone identifying or presenting as a woman is considered taboo. It could be explained that perhaps Carrot's mine is more liberal, but in "Feet of Clay", Carrot himself displays confusion over the concept of a female dwarf.

Entendre Failure: Happens with Carrot admitting he "got a girl back home in trouble" (because she was a dwarf and he was a human), and that he stays at Mrs. Palm's brothel (which he thinks is a boarding house) every night.

Establishing Character Moment: Vetinari in the cell, Vimes' rant about the law to Lupine Wonse (or perhaps his earlier defence of Lady Sybil using one of her own swamp dragons as a handgun).

Fantastic Science: The equation that explains the Alien Geometries of Unseen University Library—not because it is magical, but simply because it is a library. "Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass: a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Hole that knows how to read".

Four Terms Fallacy: "Power" hides the extra term; Pratchett deliberately confuses intellectual power with power as cosmic energy in order to make this argument. As this is Discworld, it's possible that both kinds of power are the same thing.

Fake Ultimate Hero: The guy who should have defeated the dragon and should have become king of Ankh-Morpork. Should being the key word.

Foreshadowing: Vimes momentarily thinks Carrot has abandoned him to fight two Palace Guards on his own, but Carrot had simply taken Vimes' order to "charge these men" literally and had fallen back to give himself a good run-up. Likewise, when Errol retreats from his duel with the King, Vimes assumes the little swamp dragon isn't coming back. Errol, once he's given himself distance for acceleration, returns at hypersonic speed and unleashing a sonic boom that knocks the big dragon out of the sky.

The Palace Guards are absolutely terrified of Vimes because he is alone, unarmed, and smiling - the most dangerous kind of enemy to a henchman army. Subverted in that he actually is as little of a threat as such a person should be.

Groin Attack: Actually somewhat subverted. Since Carrot has a "Protective", people who try to knee him end up injuring themselves.

Also, Nobby kicks a troll "in the stones" while it's down and nearly breaks his foot in the process.

Their attempt to hit the dragon's "voonerables", apart from being a Shout-Out to the lore about a dragon's one vulnerable spot in The Hobbit, might be a Groin Attack, since that's what the characters tend to mean when they refer to a person's "voonerables". Unfortunately, if so, they were aiming for a spot found only on dragons of the other gender.

Colon: You know all about voonerables, Nobby. I've watched you fight.

Here There Were Dragons: Although the Discworld is still a magical place, the contrast is drawn between its sad little realistic swamp dragons and the noble dragon which laughs in the face of physics thanks to its magical nature.

Vimes also gets this when he overhears a crowd of citizens rationalising away the idea of feeding their own people to the dragon, as Vetinari discusses with him later:

Vetinari: Down there are people who will follow any dragon, worship any god, ignore any iniquity. All out of a kind of humdrum, everyday badness. Not the really high, creative loathsomeness of the great sinners, but a sort of mass-produced darkness of the soul. Sin, you might say, without a trace of originality. They accept evil not because they say yes, but because they don't say no.

Also, this quote:

“I thought, in Nature, the defeated animal just rolls on its back in submission and that’s the end of it,” said Vimes, as they clattered after the disappearing swamp dragon.

“Wouldn’t work with dragons,” said Lady Ramkin. “Some daft creature rolls on its back, you disembowel it. That’s how they look at it. Almost human, really.”

Vimes: “Listen, if anyone ever sets fire to this city, its going to be me.”

Hypocritical Humor: "But when I rule the city, the Supreme Grand Master said to himself, there is going to be none of this. I shall form a new secret society of keen-minded and intelligent men, although not too intelligent of course, not too intelligent. And we will overthrow the cold tyrant and we will usher in a new age of enlightenment and fraternity and humanism and Ankh-Morpork will become a Utopia and people like Brother Plasterer will be roasted over slow fires if I have any say in the matter, which I will."

I Cannot Self-Terminate: The villain, feeling trapped by the evil he has summoned, mouths "Help. Me." to the head of the Assassin's Guild, who notes there's only one sort of "help" he can really offer.

Impossible Insurance: Dibbler promises that his "dragon protection" cream will save you from being burned to death by dragon flame, and if it doesn't work then you get your money back (upon personal application only).

Ironic Echo: When Vimes tries to get through the Palace Guard, a Guardsman called Clarence calls him "Captain Slimes" and then, after Vimes evenly corrects him to "Vimes with a Vee" then repeatedly refers to him as "Captain Vimes with a Vee" in a supercilious fashion. When Vimes later interrogates Clarence from a position of power, he calls him "Clarence with a C".

Just Like Making Love: Vimes refers to some particularly weak coffee as "love-in-a-canoe" coffee. The standard punchlinenote (it's fucking close to water) is omitted.

Elucidated Brethren member Brother Fingers escapes the dragon's attack on their headquarters, and later escapes from the Watch by sheer terror. On the other hand, considering he made an unauthorized theft from the Unseen University, if the Thieves Guild ever catches him he'll be lucky if he gets a quick death.

The dragon burns down a large portion of Ankh-Morpork and kills several people in the process, yet it ends up getting a happy ending with Errol.

"Every time he seemed to be getting anywhere he spoke his mind, or said the wrong thing. Usually at the same time."

Lawful Stupid: Carrot to the nth degree, although the fact that he can knock out trolls means there's not much the hardened criminals can do about it. He wises up in later books, but finds it useful to keep pretending he's like this.

Lonely Funeral: Only his three squad-mates attend to "Leggy" Gaskin's funeral.

Poor old Gaskin. He had broken one of the fundamental rules of being a guard. It wasn't the sort of rule that some­one like Gaskin could break twice. And so he'd been lowered into the sodden ground with the rain drum­ming on his coffin and no-one present to mourn him but the three surviving members of the Night Watch, the most despised group of men in the entire city.

Colon repeatedly mixes up the phrase "You're history" with other educational fields.

Nobby, talking smack to the Palace Guards, comes up with things like "doggybag", "doucheballs", and "slimebreaths"... and "motherbreath".

The Meddling Kids Are Useless: The Watch end up being superfluous during the Dragon's takeover of the city, and it is implied that Vetinari was already aware of Wonse's plot. How much control Vetinari had is debatable, however, as Vimes does save him from Wonse's attempt to kill him.

Medical Monarch: Parodied when a group of royalists start claiming the King will right all wrongs, Vimes demands to know what wrongs the people of Ankh-Morpork are suffering. Someone comes up with "premature baldness", and another instantly replies "Ah, kings can cure that, you know."

Metaphorgotten: Immediately after isolating that the city is like a woman, a drunken Vimes digresses: "Roaring, ancient, centuries old," - before describing how it strings you along only to kick you in the teeth and so on.

Million-to-One Chance: A hilarious attempt at invocation, where the Genre Savvy Watch try to make the odds of shooting a Dragon in its "voolnerables" exactly a million to one through various means such as blindfolding the archer, putting soot in his face and making him stand facing the wrong way on one leg while singing the Hedgehog Song — but end up with some other, non-specified, incredibly low odds instead, which isn't improbable enough and thus predictably fails. Then played straight (and lampshaded by the narration) immediately after when the annoyed dragon retaliates: Their chances of surviving that turns out to be exactly a million to one.

Mind Screw: Vimes wonders how Vetinari can still claim to be in control when he's locked in a cell. Vetinari invites him to look at the cell door (a heavy iron one with many bolts), really look at it. It takes Vimes a minute before he sees it:

Vimes stared at the door until his eyebrows ached. And then, just as random patterns in cloud suddenly, without changing in any way, become a horse's head or a sailing ship, he saw what he'd been looking at all along. A sense of terrifying admiration overcame him. He wondered what it was like in the Patrician's mind. All cold and shiny, he thought, all blued steel and icicles and little wheels clicking along like a huge clock. The kind of mind that would carefully consider its own downfall and turn it to advantage.

It was a perfectly normal dungeon door, but it all depended on your sense of perspective.

A relatively rare example from a Watch novel where the monster is notAngua. The first two times the dragon appeared, it was in the Shades. People tried to mug it the first time and the second time it accidentally saved the Watch from getting mugged, scaring the crap out of them in the process.

Subverted by Carrot's highly uneventful trip to Ankh-Morpork from the mountains; every would-be bandit who gets a look at him immediately backs down.

Murder by Inaction: Considered but averted: Vimes gets the chance to let Wonse kill Vetinari, thinking that the city would be able to "clean itself up" with Vetinari out of the picture. But he saves him anyway, and isn't sure why, other than that it's "something to do with doing it by the book."

Myopic Architecture: Vetinari is revealed to have done this on purpose: while the lock to the palace dungeon is on the outside, the locking mechanisms are on the inside. Would-be usurpers throw him in the dungeon expecting it to serve as an oubliette; instead, it's an impregnable fortress that he can "escape" at his leisure.

Naďve Newcomer: Carrot, though he's not really an audience surrogate because, at least if the readers have read the previous books, they already know most of the stuff about Ankh-Morpork he writes home about.

Never-Forgotten Skill: Sgt. Colon claims shooting a longbow is like "riding something you never forget being able to ride," while having terrible problems even drawing his bow, let alone aiming. In reality archery is most definitely NOT a case of this, it requires constant practice to keep your hand in. (The main reason crossbows became so much more popular.)

No Name Given: The Big Bad's stand-in "king" is never named. Lampshaded when a minor character assumes his name is "Rex Vivat" ("Long Live the King") because he keeps seeing the phrase on banners.

Oblivious Adoption: The novel provides the page quote for that page: it's not easy to explain a six-foot tall young man how exactly he is not a dwarf.

Obstructive Bureaucrat: Vetinari of all people, who has not yet come around to the usefulness of Vimes and spends most of their early interactions carefully stomping out the watch's investigations.

"But there's the footprints, sir," said Vimes doggedly.

"We're close to the river," said the Patrician. "Possibly it was, perhaps, a wading bird of some sort. A mere coincidence," he added, "but I should cover them over, if I were you. We don't want people getting the wrong idea and jumping to silly conclusions, do we?" he added sharply.

Odd Job Gods: Vimes knows there's a thieves' god and a whores' goddess and think there's probably even a god for assassins. But none for the Watch.

Offscreen Teleportation: After he's let himself out of his cell ("escaped" would imply he hadn't planned to be there), Vetinari pulls this on Wonse repeatedly to mess with him, using hidden passages.

"That was commendably speedy, Wonse."

Oh Crap!: The four guards, some of whom are already drunk, when they realise they've only gone and walked into The Shades. It's actually powerful enough to make them sober again.

Oh shi--: Colon's reaction when he realizes he has just said the "M-word".

One-Man Army: Carrot, thanks to genetics, narrative causality and a life spent helping dwarves with their mining.

Only the Knowledgable May Pass: The Elucidated Brethren of the Ebon Night are fond of these riddles, which leads to confusion when their members and those of another society turn up to the wrong places.

Colon: "You don't use the 'M' word. Gets right up his nose, sir. He can't help it, he loses all self-control. Like a red rag to a wossname, sir. 'Ape' is all right, sir, but not the 'M' word. Because, sir, when he gets angry he doesn't just go and sulk, sir, if you get my drift. He's no trouble at all apart from that, sir. All right? Just don't say monkey. Ohshit."

Parlor Games: The Librarian resorts to Charades to inform Carrot of the title of the stolen book (and is justifiably flustered when his attempts to signal "dragon" are interpreted as "great big hot blowing flapping thing").

Parrot Pet Position: Deconstructed by Sybil, who points out the liabilities of this trope with a Shoulder-Sized Dragon: burns, talon scratches, frizzled hair and dragon-poop down one's back. She only trains her swamp dragons to do this because it increases their market value.

Pass the Popcorn: Banged grains won't be invented for another two books, but Vimes manages this trope anyway by sitting back and rolling himself a cigarette while Carrot is beating up a couple of obnoxious Palace Guards.

The Password is Always "Swordfish": Double subverted. When one of the Supreme Grand Master's conspirators is trying to get into their meeting, he has to exchange a long string of non sequitur Spy Speak to get in the door. However, these are apparently so generic that he manages to get quite a long way in before realizing one of them doesn't match up and they realize he's got the wrong address, and is trying to get into a completely different secret society. Furthermore, when he does have the right place, it turns out one of the people belonged to the other society, but no one had noticed until they said their society's name.

Pet the Dog: The villainous Supreme Grand Master (a.k.a. Lupine Wonse) does one nice thing in the whole book. After the summoning magic consumes Brother Dunnikin's anti-crocodile amulet (see Brick Joke, above), Brother Dunnikin moans that it cost him three dollars. On finding out that Brother Dunnikin has been bitten by a crocodile and being told that the Brethren are having a whip round for him, the Supreme Grand Master asks to be put down for three dollars.

Platonic Prostitution: Carrot lives in a brothel after coming to Ankh-Morpork. Literally, as in he rents a spare room from one and is completely clueless about the ladies' profession.

Posthumous Character: "Leggy" Gaskin, who was killed shortly before the start of the book and we first meet Vimes on the way back from his funeral.

Prophecy Twist: Near the start a character briefly mentions (and dismisses) a prophecy that "Yea, the king will come bringing Law and Justice, and know nothing but the Truth, and Protect and Serve the People with his Sword". Although hardly anyone notices, the prophecy is fulfilled exactly. Note that the prophecy doesn't actually say he'll take the throne.

Proportional Aging: It's noted when describing Carrot's life early one that dwarf children aren't mature enough to be told about sexuality and reproduction until they hit puberty, at about age fifty.

Real Men Take It Black: Vimes takes his coffee black. He tries to order it "black as a moonless night", but the owner picks apart the metaphor until Vimes finally settles for "a moonless night as black as that coffee."

The Reveal: Wonse is the Supreme Grand Master and The Place Where the Dragons Went is actually the human imagination.

Also, the noble dragon is a female, and Carrot is the actual lost heir to the throne but doesn't actually want the job.

Rightful King Returns: Invoked by the plan of the Grand Supreme Master. Discussed heavily by the Elucidated Brethren in general, providing the trope's page quote. Subverted with Carrot.

Secret Handshake: The Supreme Grand Master notes to himself that the members of the Brethren are "the sort to dislocate their fingers with even the simplest secret handshake".

Serious Business: The Librarian considers the theft of a book to be a worse crime than murder. Of course, it isa magical book that allows one to summon dragons, but it's implied that all librarians feel this way about all books.

Traveling through L-Space is also not taken lightly. There are specific rules that librarians can't ignore.

Shaped Like Itself: A description of the streets of Ankh-Morpork at night includes "thieves thieved" and "assassins assassinated."

There are at least two shout-outs to Casablanca as well: the line "Of all the cities in all the world it could have flown into, he thought, it's flown into mine," and "Here's looking at you, kid," the last line Vimes speaks in the book.

Also The Man Who Was Thursday, G K Chesterton's story in which all members of an anarchist group are progressively revealed as secret policemen of various descriptions.

M. C. Escher is mentioned by name (see Alien Geometries) and his work Reptiles is alluded to in the prologue, which states that the Place Where The Dragons Went is similarly packed so tightly with dragons that if you look carefully at it, the space between each dragon is another dragon.

Carrot cries "All for one!" when he charges off to help save Lady Sybil, to Colon's and Nobby's puzzlement.

Carrot himself can also be seen as an Expy of d'Artagnan, with Colon, Nobby and Vimes as the Musketeers.

Various royalty-centric Fairy Tales are alluded to by the populace scraping together all they know about kings.

To Raymond Chandler - in times of stress Vimes resorts to a bottle in the bottom drawer of his desk. And Carrot, after spending some time polishing his old armour, steps out into the street "untarnished and unafraid", a reference to a line in Chandler's essay "The Simple Art of Murder": "Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid."

A human of heroic proportion, but naive? A foundling brought up by dwarfs, off to make his way in the world? Knows no fear? Siegfried from Richard Wagner surely?

The whole business of competing secret societies, each of which has a Brother Doorkeeper who will only let you past the Sacred Portal if you know the correct form of mystically oriented words, is reminiscent of similar shennanigans in Robert Anton Wilson's Illuminatus! trilogy.

"There must be a million stories in the naked city, thought Vimes. So why do I always have to listen to ones like these?" is a reference to Naked City.

Sidetracked by the Analogy: After the above example of Dissimile, Vimes changes the subject, but Colon responds with little enthusiasm because "He was still wondering about his superior officer’s sex life."

Smug Snake: The Supreme Grand Master, a.k.a. Lupine Wonse, who vastly overestimates his own power in summoning and controlling the dragon, not to mention the fact that he thought he could do a better job running the city than Vetinari.

Spare Body Parts: Swamp dragons have eight stomachs, plus a lot of other parts not specified to allow their digestive tracts to process practically anything into fuel.

Spoiler Cover: On the Harper-Torch edition, the cover art depicts the dragon wearing a crown, which is a surprise plot development occurring late in the book.

Spy Speak: Very prevalent among the numerous secret organizations apparently, leading to more than one humourous misunderstanding.

Standard Hero Reward: Defied. All the dragon slaying heroes insist on this for slaying the dragon, but Vetinari makes it clear there is no princess and this is not a kingdom. He does have an aunt, though. And a dog.

"They felt, in fact, tremendously bucked-up, which was how Lady Ramkin would almost certainly have put it and which was definitely several letters of the alphabet away from how they normally felt."

Summon Bigger Fish: Vimes catches Wonse planning to summon another dragon to fight the first one.

Sword of Plot Advancement: Subverted, of course. The fake heir to the throne has an incredibly shiny sword covered in gems and doesn't really do him much good, while Carrot's aggressively non-magical, completely sword-like sword can cut through pretty much anything (including the shiny sword).

Time Travel: How the Librarian eventually discovers who stole his book. He is able to do this because all libraries are interconnected through L-Space and he is able to find the paths connecting the Unseen University Library to any other... including the Unseen University Library of two weeks ago.

Trail Of Breadcrumbs: The Librarian does this when navigating through L-Space with a big ball of string. He ties one end to his desk in the middle of the Library... and when he reaches his destination, the same place but two weeks ago, he ties the other end to his two-weeks-younger desk with his two-weeks-younger self sleeping behind it. Try not to think about this too much.

Training the Gift of Magic: This is one of the few places in the Discworld series where we see that characters lacking any aptitude for magic, and also any formal training, can in fact get it to work, sort of, using lengthy rituals based on stolen information, and a source of power. We also see why this is a really, really bad idea.

Turn in Your Badge: Wonse demands this from Vimes after he disrupts the coronation (mistaking a raven for the dragon).

Welcome to the Big City: Carrot's arrival in Ankh has elements of this; he doesn't get robbed himself, but he doesn't cope well with the idea that theft is legal (and that the Watch are probably closer to criminals than the Guild of Thieves is). Although he's so naive he doesn't notice the prostitution, even when he's staying at Mrs Palm's.

What Happened to the Mouse?: Vimes "being brung low by a woman" as part of the backstory for his alcoholic state is not referred to again, even though later books explore his earlier life some more and make more than one Continuity Nod to other elements from this book (such as Leggy Gaskin).

The Watchmen might think that Vimes was referring to an actual woman, but considering that Vimes referred to Ankh-Morpork as a woman at least twice earlier in the book, the "woman" may have been there the entire time.

In a later book, a plausible candidate for "the woman" is identified as a Miss Mavis Trouncer; Vimes, facing death, hopes that when his life flashes before his eyes, it fast-forwards through the bits pertaining to his association with Mavis.

A Wizard Did It: The dragon is able to fly... because of Magic. Of course, in the Discworld, this is a perfectly legitimate explanation.

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